


a million ways to toe the line

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Clothed Sex, Dry Humping, F/M, Frottage, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Redeemed(ish) Ben Solo, Repentant Ben Solo, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-07-25 10:57:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16196138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Han Solo is the ghost who haunts them both.





	a million ways to toe the line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/gifts).



> Title from the song “Dark Days” by Local Natives.

Qi’ra’s body pressed Ben into the bed, her weight serving as the only anchor in the galaxy that managed to keep him moored long enough to stop him from making an even worse decision than falling into her bed or pulling her into his. With his eyes shut tight, he could almost pretend this wasn’t what it was and if he didn’t listen to the sound of his own harsh, panting breaths mingling with hers, he could almost pretend it wasn’t Qi’ra he was doing it with.

It was for the best, pretending. Since they couldn’t seem to refrain for more than a few days at a time before grief overwhelmed them again and they stole what few pieces of his father they could take from one another.

Perhaps that wasn’t how she would have described it. Maybe she thought of it like they were rifling through one another’s pockets for what worthwhile trinkets they could find. He didn’t know, because they didn’t talk about it, but he was absolutely certain that was what they were doing. It was what he was doing anyway, taking everything he could from her, one of the only people he could reach who actually knew his father and who also knew that people did bad things. More importantly, she didn’t shy away from it.

It may have been cowardice that brought him to Crimson Dawn’s door instead of the Resistance’s, but as soon as she’d seen him, she’d slapped him across the face. And then she brought him to her office and locked the door until he’d told her everything. It took a while. Hours. Most of a day before he’d finally broken for her.

She hadn’t once seemed concerned that he might kill her, but that didn’t surprise. There were rumors she’d spent time training with a true Sith lord. As soon as he saw her, he’d believed it and he still believed it now. It wasn’t just her utter lack of fear of what he was capable of, but her complete acceptance of what he’d done. Like she might have done the same if their situation was reversed.

There was no point thinking about that, though.

She’d stopped wearing her perfume to bed and for that he was glad; he still hadn’t figured out how to burn scent memories from his mind. The sweet, dark spice of it utterly obliterated his plausible deniability and lingered in the back of his mind. At one point, he’d all but shoved her from the bed so he could dry heave in the bathroom. After the first time the guilt got to be too much, after weeks spent angry and apart, after he told she was a vile, vindictive woman and she told him he was a spoiled, murderous child, he found her again. Ever since, they have always scoured their identities from their skin before coming together.

Now, they knew how to navigate these moments they couldn’t stop themselves from wanting.

Qi’ra’s mouth sucked a mark into his shoulder blade. Her hair tickled his neck and cheek. Her teeth scraped over the muscles of his back. This was the only direct contact she allowed beyond pressing his wrists into the bed, her fingernails lancing across the vulnerable stretch of tendons there as she tightened her grip.

They never spoke to one another. What words were there to speak between them that weren’t full of recriminations that neither of them wanted to hear?

He groaned as she hiked her knee higher between his legs, her fabric-clad thigh brushing his cock, equally covered.

Though they sometimes removed their shirts, they never took off the rest of their clothing. An unwritten rule.

As long as they didn’t cross that line, everything would be fine.

Her grip on his wrists tightened even further, sharp enough to draw blood—and sometimes she did, both accidentally and not—and her thighs tightened as she rode the back of his leg. Each press of her body pushed him further against the bed. Pinned, there was little he could do except thrust against the mattress, the friction pushing him, slow and inexorable, toward orgasm. Heat curled slow and smoke-like in his stomach, but there was no comfort to be had here, no joy, no true fulfillment. It made the demarcation between nights like this and the light of day clear and easy to navigate.

It didn’t make him happy, but it kept more of the unhappiness at bay than he could ever have hoped to expect otherwise.

Biting his lip, he tried to imagine what this had been like for his father, whether he’d felt love or trust or connection when he and Qi’ra had done this, things Ben didn’t feel for her, couldn’t feel for anyone. Surely he’d felt something. Han Solo had felt everything so deeply. No doubt he would have felt love and trust even when he shouldn’t have.

Another thing Ben Solo also excelled at. Another thing he hated his father for. Even when Ben denied himself, there was no relief. Even for Qi’ra, he sometimes felt fondness now.

She didn’t say his name, but Ben knew her desires all the same. She wanted to see his father in him and hated that she couldn’t, not enough to slake the monsters that burned inside every deep chasm inside of her. At this point, it wasn’t even about recapturing lost love. All she wanted was to remove this one line in the ledger of her life. A regret, paid back. A debt erased. He couldn’t read her mind, but he could feel it in every powerful twist of her hips, experienced through layers upon layers of grief and linen.

It was kind of like how he’d sought forgiveness in the one place he might reasonably expect to find it. Or at least understanding.

Qi’ra was maybe the only one in the galaxy who knew what it was to love Han Solo and betray him anyway.

If anyone could understand what Ben was going through, it was Qi’ra. Maybe that was why she’d allowed this thing to happen, why she’d welcomed him when he came to her. He’d thought he already knew his lowest point, but he thought perhaps he hadn’t known a damn thing until he’d looked her in the face, a woman he’d never met, and been so fully understood. She’d merely nodded and pressed her hand between her shoulder blade as she guided him into her office. After the slap. Always after the slap.

She’d kept the _First Light_. His father had never talked about it, not really, but he’d known enough to figure it out when he was old enough to realize his father and his mother had had lives before one another. By the time he was an adult and fully in his power, he could get any information he was after and then some. Discovering where Han Solo had first become Han Solo hadn’t been so very difficult.

He’d almost asked her if she’d redecorated at all. And then he’d realized he didn’t really want to know. He wanted to imagine it was the same, imagine that his father had walked the same steps he had once upon a time. “Well,” she’d said, as though braced for the worst, which was prescient of her, “I didn’t expect to see you here. I honestly never thought I’d get to meet you. Welcome, Ben. Or do you prefer…?”

“Ben’s fine,” he’d answered, stretched far too thin already. He’d abandoned everything he’d claimed to have wanted, lost everything for it and more. There wasn’t a damned thing in hell he was going to do to dredge it back up. Kylo Ren was dead. Ben would have to figure it out alone going forward.

“And why are you here?”

He hadn’t said anything at the time. If she asked again now, he wasn’t sure what he would say.

She moved again, did something that made reluctant pleasure arc up his spine, made him tense and shake and wind his fingers into the sheets. Each breath grew sharper, forced out of him at knife point. And even so, he wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else. This was what he deserved, what he needed. And she did, too, or else she wouldn’t have been here.

Her forehead, surprisingly cool, rested against his back as she arched and hissed and finally shuddered against him. It was the only time she relaxed, these moments after she climaxed, and Ben might as well not even have been there for them.

As he tipped into his own orgasm, dry and pained, he didn’t mind. His breath rattled in his chest and for a moment, he couldn’t move. If he waited too long, he knew he’d be paying for it, but for right now, he couldn’t help sprawling, his heartbeat slowing while Qi’ra rested against him. If he could claim contentment for himself, he would have found it in these moments, the silence between him and Qi’ra deafening, soothing, enough to keep the rest of the galaxy at bay for a time.

It wouldn’t save him from himself, he knew, but it might keep the demons at bay long enough for him to get back on his feet.

Qi’ra’s breath was warm against his skin as she shifted and turned her head, cheek resting against his neck.

“Why did you do it?” she whispered into his hair. She’d never spoken to him during these moments before and he froze, his every delusion shattering into a million different pieces. They could have coated the bed in shards of glass, fit to cut.

Tears prickled in this eyes and he was afraid of the lump in his throat that threatened to strangle him. But he knew Qi’ra, she didn’t ask because she wanted anything but the truth. He could tell her if he wanted to. She would not judge.

He didn’t want to tell her, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I thought it would kill me, too.”

He said nothing else and neither did she; they didn’t need to speak. And though in the end he felt no better for it, he was glad to have spoken the one truth, the one failure in his life that had never been resolved.

More than anything, he did want the act to have killed him.

And he would never forgive himself for surviving it. Perhaps neither would Qi’ra.

That was why he stayed.


End file.
